Dave Mosher/Business Insider
- Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, has unveiled a giant lunar lander made by his spaceflight company, Blue Origin.
- Bezos spoke about the "Blue Moon" spacecraft on Thursday during an hour-long talk in Washington, DC.
- He also shared his grand vision for populating the solar system with a trillion people, ideally in huge space colonies as first envisioned by physicist Gerard O’Neill in the 1970s.
- You can watch a YouTube video of Bezos’ full presentation below.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, has a bold vision for the future of humanity: A trillion people living and working in outer space, ideally in giant Earth-like "O’Neill colonies." (The name comes from physicist Gerard O’Neill, who first described this idea in the 1970s.)
Bezos, who founded the spaceflight company Blue Origin, has described this idea several times over the past couple of years. But yesterday, he gave his most in-depth presentation about it yet.
Bezos’ nearly hour-long talk included eye-catching animations to make the case that Earth’s resources are limited, humanity’s thirst for them is not, and that we are barreling toward a grim future if we don’t try something bold and new very soon.
Bezos also unveiled a giant lunar-landing spacecraft called Blue Moon, which he sees as stepping stone to that future. Most immediately, he hopes NASA will pick the vehicle to help the agency return astronauts to the moon in 2024.
"This is an incredible vehicle, and it’s going to the moon," Bezos said.
Blue Origin prohibited journalists from live-broadcasting the event, but the company on Friday released a video of Bezos’ talk on YouTube for all to see.
You can watch Bezos describe his dreams, pull the curtain on Blue Moon, and indirectly rib the long-term goals of Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, using the embedded player below.
NOW WATCH: How SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic plan on taking you to space
See Also:
- Jeff Bezos has unveiled an enormous ‘Blue Moon’ lunar lander to ferry payloads — and maybe people — to the moon’s surface. Here’s what it looks like and how it’d work.
- Jeff Bezos unveils a giant lunar lander that he says is ‘going to the moon’ and will help Blue Origin populate space
- Jeff Bezos will reveal new details about his rocket company Blue Origin today. Clues suggest he could announce plans to land on the moon.
DON’T MISS: Jeff Bezos nearly died starting his rocket company Blue Origin — here’s what happened
Source: Business Insider – dmosher+queries@insider.com (Dave Mosher)